One of our first backpacking trips in Colorado was in the Sangre de Christo Mountains. One mountain in particular drew our attention. Marble Mountain was the location of a famous story of a Spanish cave of gold. There are many places on the web that tell this story better than I could, suffice it to say that we wanted to locate it and see the iconic 'Maltese Cross' located at it's entrance.
In 1974 after I got out of the Army we invited some friends to join us on this trip. We parked our car at the trailhead in the Wet Mountain Valley and backpacked up Marble Mountain to 12,000 feet. In one of the culverts we found the entrance to the cave.
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| Maltese Cross at the Caverna del oro |
It turned out to be a real thing. The large red cross was still visible after 400 yrs. According to legend the Spanish put it there in the 1600's. I did have the courage to crawl into it but only a few feet. After about 10 feet there is a vertical shaft that drops about 750 feet!
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| The Cross is very faint but still visible |
I took another friend here in the 1980's and the cross was still there. We found no Spanish armor, skeletons, gold, ladders or anything else described in the stories, just a lot of fun and some great memories.
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| Patti at the entrance to the cave |
That sounds like a fun trip!
ReplyDeleteGreat story. And the photos were good as well. Who were the friends in the photo? I tried to see if I could recognize any of them, but couldn't.
ReplyDeleteThe couple to my left are musician friends. The man in front of me is another person we met on the mountain.
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